Origins- Center of the Universe- dr. Russell Humphreys
Monday, June 4, 2012
Sugar: Fattening & Harmful to the Brain!
By Deirdre Imus, Green Your World, May 30, 2012
Sugar, as we’ve long been told by our mothers and doctors, rots your teeth, causes acne and leads to obesity and diabetes. But does it actually make you stupid? That’s the new, and not very surprising, development to come out of UCLA’s School of Medicine earlier this month.
A new study in rats showed that a diet steadily high in fructose slows the brain, which hampers memory and learning. What’s more, researchers also found that omega-3 fatty acids can counteract this disruption.
This analysis is remarkable because it proves for the first time a link between what you eat and how you think (or don’t, as it turns out). Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, the study author, emphasized he is less concerned with naturally occurring fructose, found in fruits, than he is with the fructose in high-fructose corn syrup, which is artificially manufactured and added to foods as a sweetener and preservative.
As I’ve pointed out here before, a diet full of high-fructose corn syrup can lead to insulin resistance. In addition to controlling blood sugar, insulin also regulates synaptic function in the brain. If the brain tissue becomes resistant to insulin, as it did for the rats in the UCLA study, the ability to think clearly and to process thoughts and emotions may be affected as well—and not for the better.
How can we remedy this problem? Sure, the omega-3 fatty acids found in salmon, walnuts, flaxseeds, and supplements might offset some of the negative effects of sugar on the brain, but the real solution is eliminating high-fructose corn syrup, not only from our individual diets, but from our food supply in general.
This is a tall order. The Corn Refiners Association is intent on convincing the general public that high-fructose corn syrup is good for you and doesn’t cause any awful consequences. A few years ago, they even set up a booth at the annual American Academy of Pediatrics Conference, where they extolled the virtues of high-fructose corn syrup to a group of doctors. Not only should medical professionals know better, but such outrageous dogma has no place at an event dedicated to children’s health.
The Corn Refiners Association is so desperate for an image overhaul that in 2010 they petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to officially change the name “high-fructose corn syrup” to simply “corn sugar.”
Unhappy with this misleading nomenclature, even sugar producers want nothing to do with high-fructose corn syrup: they filed a suit claiming that the Corn Refiners Association used false advertising when it aired commercials stating, “your body can’t tell the difference” between actual sugar and the fake stuff.
Whatever you call it, here’s what we know about the fructose found in high-fructose corn syrup, and about eating too much of any kind of sugar: it can lead to obesity, diabetes, and all the health complications associated with those two conditions, like heart disease. Eating too many processed foods, most of which contain unnatural sugars, can cause inflammation in the body. Inflammation begets all types of cancers, not to mention depression, arthritis, intestinal malfunction, and much more. And now, as the UCLA study showed, it decreases brain activity in rats. I’d call it the “icing on the cake,” but that just seems superfluous.
The only surefire ways to limit or remove high-fructose corn syrup from your diet is to eat primarily plant-based, organic, whole foods filled with the nutrients and vitamins that make us feel good—mentally, physically, emotionally. Now if only the food producers in this country would get on board.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Russian Church Is a Strong Voice Opposing Intervention in Syria!
By Ellen Barry, NY Times, May 31, 2012
MOSCOW—As the West sought to pressure the Kremlin recently to help stop the killing in Syria, diplomats from Damascus were ushered into the heart of one of Russian Orthodoxy’s main shrines.
Opening an exhibition devoted to Syrian Christianity in a cathedral near the Kremlin, they commiserated with Russian priests and theologians about their shared anxiety: What would happen if Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, was forced from power?
It is clear by now that Russia’s government has dug in against outside intervention in Syria, its longtime partner and last firm foothold in the Middle East. Less well known is the position taken by the Russian Orthodox Church, which fears that Christian minorities, many of them Orthodox, will be swept away by a wave of Islamic fundamentalism unleashed by the Arab Spring.
In his warnings, Patriarch Kirill I invokes Bolshevik persecution still fresh in the Russian imagination, writing of “the carcasses of defiled churches still remaining in our country.”
This argument for supporting sitting leaders has reached a peak around Syria, whose minority population of Christians, about 10 percent, has been reluctant to join the Sunni Muslim opposition against Mr. Assad, fearing persecution at those same hands if he were to fall. If the church’s advocacy cannot be said to guide Russia’s policy, it is one of the factors that make compromise with the West so elusive, especially at a time of domestic political uncertainty for the Kremlin.
“Someone once said George Soros was the only American citizen who has his own foreign policy,” said Andrei Zolotov Jr., a leading religion writer and chief editor of Russia Profile. “Well, the Moscow patriarchate is the only Russian entity with its own foreign policy.”
Three and a half months ago, intent on achieving a commanding win in presidential elections, Vladimir V. Putin sought support from Russia’s religious leaders, pledging tens of millions of dollars to reconstruct places of worship and state financing for religious schools.
But Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the patriarchate’s department of external church relations, did not ask for money. The issue of “Christianophobia” shot to the top of the church’s agenda a year ago, with a statement warning that “they are killing our brothers and sisters, driving them from their homes, separating them from their near and dear, stripping them of the right to confess their religious beliefs.” The metropolitan asked Mr. Putin to promise to protect Christian minorities in the Middle East.
“So it will be,” Mr. Putin said. “There is no doubt at all.”
The request was one that plunged deep into geopolitics, since Christian minorities are aligned with several of the governments that have faced popular uprisings. The statements on “Christianophobia” amount to a denunciation of Western intervention, especially in Egypt and Iraq, which lost two-thirds of its 1.5 million Christians after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The Russian Orthodox Church regularly meets with the Russian Foreign Ministry to discuss its agenda outside Russia’s borders, and is seen by most experts as eager to render support to the Kremlin.
Usama Matar, an optometrist who has lived in Russia since 1983, said he did not harbor any illusions about Russia’s motives for defending Syrian Christians like himself, whom he called “small coins in a big game.” But he said there were few international players taking notice of Eastern Christians at all.
“The West is pursuing its own interests; they are indifferent to our fate,” he said. “I am not justifying the Assad regime—it is dictatorial, we know this, it is despotic, I understand. But these guys, they don’t even hide their intention to build an Islamic state and their methods of battle, where they just execute people on the streets. That’s the opposition, not just the authorities. And we are between two fires.”
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Friday, June 1, 2012
Immanuel Kant- German Philosopher
The Bible is the greatest benefit which the human race has ever experienced. A single line in the Bible has consoled me more than all the books I ever read besides.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German Philosopher
